Apple’s MacBook Pro Line Not Refreshed at WWDC

It may come as no surprise to people who follow the Apple tech rumors that they announced at their annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) new MacBook Air models. They are based on the 4th Generation Intel Core architecture and are code named “Haswell.” What is interesting is that while many manufacturers are releasing Haswell-equipped computers, Apple did not choose today to refresh their MacBook Pro line of machines.

After the store came back online, an examination of the Apple Store’s MacBook Pro page still shows the “Ivy Bridge” (or 3rd Generation) computers with the Intel HD 4000 chipset. The Haswell machines feature Intel’s latest HD 5000, and also significantly better battery life. This better battery life on the MacBook Air will give what was a 7 hour battery on the 13 inch model up to 12 hours of use now with Haswell.

Being a developer conference, it is logical to assume that those developers are interested in the most powerful hardware that Apple sells. Presumably, that is why they teased the new Mac Pro at this event. While the current MacBook Pro units are still powerhouses in their own right, neglecting the professional line at a professional show seems like a glaring oversight for Apple.

The new MacBook Air units also ship with 802.11ac wireless, which is a technology that allows for faster wireless networking than the previous 802.11n hardware. Apple even upgraded their AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule devices to support the technology. A refresh of the MacBook Pro will also presumably bring the addition of this technology to the model.

In the past, Apple has silently refreshed devices during a keynote and not mentioned it. They do that especially when there is a new chipset architecture to take advantage of. With everything else Apple is working on, they may not have had the resources or the time to devote to the MacBook Pro. People holding out on purchasing until today will be disappointed that they have to wait even longer.

No macbook pro refresh…. argh. I was so waiting for a refresh today… for a year at least. The current model has so many issues with the underpowered GPU for the retina and I was hoping a refresh would resolve this. Damn it.

I too was waiting for the macBook Pro update before dropping $2,500 on a new one. Ugh, anyone know how long before the Pro would be announced? My current MacBook is over 4 years old and ready to retire.

Disappointed too. I was holding off buying a Macbook Pro for my college-bound son. Hate to buy one of the older ones now and have the new ones come out in the fall. Or Christmas. The hardware announcements at this conference seem kind of tentative, strategically speaking.

The wife saw my MBPr 13″ and wanted her own since it was time for her to upgrade and she didn’t want another Windows based machine, especially Windows 8. Held off purchasing the 15″ MBPr until now expecting the latest upgrades. Very disappointing.

So sad. I’ve been a PCer all my life. Fell in love with the quality of my roommates MacBook Pro, and was holding off to buy the Haswell version. Why should I hold off now when there are so many nice ultrabooks lining up with this new chip? Damn! Almost switched over. Sorry, Apple.

Really disappointing. I was postponing my laptop replacement for three months now in order to buy a Haswell + nVidia7xx retina macbook pro. I will have to look at some other brand now (maybe Razer or Gigabyte?). Not the end of the world for Apple though, the majority of their customers will buy an extremely outdated macbook pro now for the sake of buying an apple laptop.

I have to admit, I was genuinely distraught by this so much so in fact that I was on a downer the whole way through the, what was actually an amazing, iOS 7 announcement. I was holding off for the rMBP and now my almost dead, late 2008 MB is going to have to survive a little longer.

Yep! I just knew we would get a new MBP and am ready to buy. I skipped over all of the other announcements looking for the MBP. Well, my current MBP is just two years old, I will wait and maybe Apple will drop a surprise update still yet later this year.
Ron